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Radicalise Before they Criminalise you

What I have learnt from taking a hard line stance against the status quo, is the visceral outrage of swaying further outside the ideological/political spectrum than most are used to. There is a real hate you can feel when you step outside the lines of conservatism and/or liberalism. They really do despise you for it – a testament to the cold war propaganda I guess? It seems much more in the norm for people to accept racism today than they would Stalinism. One of these holds political worth and contains economic theory, the other is based on fear and white supremacy. They cannot share a parallel just because both resulted in people dying. It is like claiming brain surgery is the same as a shot gun wound to the head just because they can both result in the loss of life. There is a clear fallacy here, where liberals give platform to hate, but eagerly reject leftist ideologies and political theories due to the threat of communist values (here in the West).

For those who are not in the know or yet to experience such disdain, this is currently being mirrored in British politics with its Labour party, in which (as I rightly predicted), current Leader Jeremy Corbyn is consistently under fire by the establishment and its loyalists as he dares to utter socialist views while on a political platform. Now there is plenty to say about Labour and its leader, and I feel it has been covered by everyone. For me what is more interesting than the speculation of party politics, is what people around the debate are saying. I believe they give a more accurate portrayal of what is ideologically being depicted. After all, politicians (although they have their own agenda) are simply vessels for us to channel our bad behaviour. I believe it is in our pundits, both left/right of the spectrum, who inject debate into the public; possibly because most politics is outdated and boring for most and that the state itself is over convoluted with bureaucracy. It is therefore to our journalists and commentators that we look at to add context; and although tainted by personal bias, they are often channelled through state approved platforms before spouting their opinions. This means that their views are conjoined to the dominant ideology the state perpetuates.

The key argument that has arisen from Corbyn’s continuous fallout, has begun to encroach onto my ideological territory. Not only has the Left flocked to him as an establishment figure but, the unions seem to back him too. He has now started to gain a following and although, I am not Labour fan, even I cannot help but agree with a lot of his polices and some of his speeches. However, what has become very noticeable and almost unavoidable within the British press, is his relationship with the Left. His rivals argue he lacks centre ground and he alienates his more conservative voters which in reality translates to him pissing off New Labour and the Thatcherites (which is fine by me). Others have compared his following as Nazism, calling him and his supporters fascists. Critics have claimed his backers have a mob like mentality which could easily be argued to be collectivised retaliation. Most of this stems from how vocal Corbyn supporters are on social media.

The issue I have found is that it is so often reactionary rather than organised. Despite this the knee jerk reaction of his fan base seems justified. Critics of Israeli occupation have been slandered as anti- Semites, Identity politics has been used against Corbyn, who himself has been ridiculed by state TV (BBC). It has been clear from the start that they would try to villainize any form of socio-economic change through a political platform. Any attack on the mechanics of liberalism is instantly dismissed, eradicated from the debate and you are coined a Radical. This is something I have noticed often when conversing with centrists, although conservatives also play this card a lot too. By aligning far right into the same category as far left (despite being polar opposites), they are able to apply the exact same moral judgement, i.e killing a man because he is Black is the same as killing a man because he is a capitalist and if it is as bad, how is it any different from when Liberals killed feudalists? Hypocrisy seems so innate in liberalism. It so often seems that the concept of the ‘rational actor’ is only applicable when it supports liberalism otherwise it is labelled an being an extremist. Liberalism did not arrive as the dominant political thought through ‘pure’ means so why is it so insistent on other leftist ideologies working this miracle? Liberals reject violence in theory, but constantly accept violence in practice, while Ultra-lefts accept violence in theory but so often reject violence in practice. One can argue that both far right and left are capable of committing the same type of authoritarianism, but, by definition one cannot argue that they are attempting to reach the same goals, and therefore cannot ever be the same.

One could argue that in today’s political climate this is a knee jerk reaction to what is perceived as justified radicalisation but, there seems to be a clear fallacy and lack of critical thinking when debating leftist ideology. It seems anything outside the dominant spectrum of Liberalism is seen as an extremist view; not only has this completely stifled the modern left, due to fear of prosecution, whether that be through state or peers, but has also begun to overshadow the real issues that plague the left. Issues such as identity politics or the problematic occurrence of Anglo-European dominance in its philosophy are rarely addressed due to the ideological barricades entrenched by the centre. With the concept of ‘Polite Politics’ creeping in to the UK in the wake of an MP’s murder by a right wing nationalist, we are now being told to be tolerant of our government’s failures. One cannot help but suspect that this is little more than a crude attempt to suppress any real dissidents within them public. I shall leave you with the words of Karl Popper: